APASU & Chinese Language Culture
February 10th was the official start of the Lunar New Year, and the Asian and Pacific American Student Union (APASU) and the Chinese Language and Culture Club hosted a joint meeting to discuss the history, tradition, and culture of this celebration. As mentioned in a past meeting held by the APASU last year on the same topics, the start of the Lunar New Year is the 2nd moon after the winter solstice. This marks the start of a new annual cycle based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar. The Lunar New Year, sometimes also referred to as “The Spring Festival,” coincides with the new planting period for farmers to plant crops since it marks the end of winter and begins to look forward in anticipation for spring. In modern New Year celebrations, it is common to see a large emphasis on food due to the Lunar New Year's roots in agriculture. The first recorded mention of the Lunar New Year was during the Han Dynasty. Literature from the Han Dynasty describes the Lunar New Year as consisting of family gatherings to celebrate and honor familial history. This year is the year of the Wooden Dragon. The Chinese zodiac horoscope predicts what the coming year will be like. For the year of the dragon, as mentioned in the meeting, it predicts a year “...representing authority, prosperity, and good fortune.” The year is said to bring “evolution, improvement, and abundance,” which makes this a largely anticipated year for many cultures.
Traditionally, during Lunar New Year, there are lots of gatherings and celebrations with your loved ones. On its ever, celebrators gather with close family members to bring in and celebrate the day to come. On the day of the Lunar New Year, they visit and greet their closest family and acquaintances. The system of visiting allows individuals to show respect and care for others. Celebrators visit the most important people to them at the beginning of the Lunar New Year and as days pass, they continue to meet with others in a more informal setting. These meetings are usually with people that they are not as close with. The day before the last day of the Lunar New Year is the start of spring on the Solar calendar (which is different from the Lunar calendar which is being celebrated but it is still acknowledged). On the last day of the Lunar New Year, there is a Lantern Festival which is a big celebration with a festival on the street that has a lot of activities and great food to eat. The celebration and activities are the grandest out of all the days during the Lunar New Year.
While there is a significant connection between Chinese culture and the Lunar New Year, other Asian countries have their own unique ways of celebrating this time. Celebrating in different ways depending on the ethnic group, the Malaysian Lunar New Year is a diverse yet familiar version of the Chinese New Year celebration. During the Lunar New Year in Malaysia, there are dragon and lion performances in the streets throughout the festivities of the celebration. Similar to all the other versions of the Lunar New Year, there are also big family gatherings where families feast on traditional Chinese foods. Some foods include, Yee sang which is a salad dish that represents good luck and prosperity. Mandarin oranges are also enjoyed during this time since they symbolize good luck. Just like some other traditions, red envelopes are also given out during the Malaysian Lunar New Year. Their red envelopes are called ang pow and they are given to children and unmarried family members.
The Lunar New Year is also closely tied to religion. In the Taoism religion, it is believed that going to a Taoism temple during the New Year gets rid of the bad luck from the previous year and begins preparations for bringing in the good luck from the new year. Lotus Lanterns can be lit at these temples and they represent prosperity and good fortune for the year to come. It is also a custom to place wood in front of your door on New Year’s Eve because it represents keeping the money of last year and continuing to bring more money in. The pronunciation of wood in Chinese is similar to the pronunciation of money, so this custom is closely related to financial prosperity. In the Catholic culture, you will also find that individuals write couplets to pray for blessing from God. The idea of reflecting on the previous year and looking forward is a common theme throughout all celebrations of the New Year. Many will also take the time to pay respect to their ancestors by going to Ancestral temples.
A common tradition that continues with the theme of financial prosperity in the new year is to give and receive Lai See, which are red envelopes containing money. You can typically accept the envelopes from anyone when you are unmarried but traditionally, when you are married, you should only receive Lai See from your parents. With the age of technology during this time, the meeting talked about how digital methods of giving money are becoming increasingly more common. Some other traditional customs include superstitions like not cleaning the house or working on New Year's Eve and Day because it is considered as washing away your good luck and you don’t want to be working for the whole year.
The celebration of the Lunar New Year would not be complete without the traditional foods and gatherings. While it is customary for many businesses to shut down for the beginning of the New Year, there are still a lot of advertised food options like a Lunar New Year Set Dinner which is a large meal complete with both savory and sweet dishes. Sweet rice and date walnut candy are also common foods to see advertised and put out at stores during this time. Nian gao is a sweet cake that is cooked at home to enjoy with family. Lo Bak Go is steamed radish baked in a cake-style dish that can be filled with other savory or sweet ingredients like shrimp or Chinese sausage. Bánh tét is a traditional Lunar New Year food in Vietnam. It is a sticky rice cake that has many savory and sweet variations for filling, such as mung beans and pork. The rice cake is wrapped in banana leaves in a log-style shape and is then cut into thinner cylinders to be enjoyed.
Lo hei is another dish traditionally eaten on the eve of the Lunar New Year. Usually eaten at a circular table which represents eating together, it is a deconstructed salad composed of multiple dishes arranged neatly at a table. When eaten, the group will use chopsticks to mix the ingredients together into a salad while saying lucky sayings or wishes for prosperity to bring in good luck for the New Year.
The Lunar New Year usually includes diverse breakfast options such as dumplings, ci ba, tteokguk, and osechi ryori. Dumplings are usually filled with savory ingredients like pork while ci ba is a Chinese sticky rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into balls or cubes. It can then be fried or steamed giving many options for it to be enjoyed. Following the theme of celebration through food, people who celebrate the South Korean Lunar New Year will usually eat tteokguk, which is a rice cake soup, mandu which is a type of Korean dumpling, galbijjim which is just braised beef short ribs, and japchae or glass noodles. Tteokguk is served because the rice cakes in the soup resemble coins and it is a symbol of good fortune for the year. Osechi ryori is a traditional Lunar New Year dish in Japan which is an assortment of colorful dishes packed in neat and beautiful boxes. The dish contains traditional Japanese foods such as seafood and an assortment of fruits and vegetables.
The meeting ended with a recollection of other students’ Chinese New Year experiences. Modeling after the true essence of the New Year being togetherness and cultivating positivity and prosperity in the year to come, meeting participants happily shared their experiences in a moment of bonding and joy, which was a perfect way to start the new year!